Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday October 24, 2012 @03:49PM
from the might-as-well-investigate-somebody dept.

sl4shd0rk writes "Good news for Apple, bad news for Samsung. Yesterday, Apple filed legal papers with the International Trade Commission citing a Department of Justice investigation into whether Samsung is misusing its 'Standards essential' patents in ways which violate antitrust law. Apple claims Samsung has violated commitments to license its essential patents to competitors on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Or, more specifically, Samsung is 'using certain patents as a basis for improper legal actions that seek to block the sale of competitors' products.' The article says Google (because of its recent acquisition, Motorola Mobility) is under the same scrutiny."

According to the ITC [groklaw.net] judge reviewing Apple's complaints about Samsung's standards essential patents, Apple didn't avail themselves to any of the existing remedies when they felt Samsung wasn't offering them a fair licensing deal. They essentially said "You're asking for too much, so we're not paying anything."If Apple really felt the prices were too high, there are processes in place to force Samsung to the negotiating table. They didn't use any of them. There's no evidence they even made a counter-offer.Seems more like Apple just doesn't care about other people's patents than Samsung is offering an unfair deal.

From what I read the problem is that the typical negotiations on FRAND patents is that I want to license patent X and in return u get to license patent Y plus $Z(or the other way around). This is of course fine but then Apple comes along and wants to license some FRAND patents but refuse to include any of their own patents in the deal but they still expect to pay only $Z. Samsung tells Apple no way thats completely unreasonable, either you agree to license us some of your patents or you pay a lot more than $Z... Apple does not like that and instead decides to whine to the Department of Justice and the ITC.

Other licensees typically write cross-license agreements where they offer some of their own patents in return and therefore gets a sometimes much lower rate. Apple wants the lower rates without offering any other patents in return.

Actually, the Bush administration was far more active in prosecuting corporate malfeasance. When Enron collapsed the principals were prosecuted pretty vigorously. Hell, they put Martha Stewart in jail.

On the other hand, when MF Global collapsed (one of the top ten bankruptcies in US history), a collapse that involved misappropriation of customer funds, the Obama administration did... well, nothing. How is it Jon Corzine is still a free man?

Actually what you know as a computer was invented by Xerox Parc and copied by Apple, from mouse to Gui to Windows, all copied. When Apple sued Microsoft for 'look and feel' they lost.

As to the Creative Patent problem, that's a patent office problem. Just because one troll company was granted a vague broad patent, doesn't mean the fix is to grant all companies vague broad patents. The problem here is the patent system is a complete joke, not that the 'wrong' companies are abusing it.